I was struck by this quote: "“It is as simple as that: we have lost touch with things, lost the physical experience that comes from a direct contact with the organic processes of nature… We know it – instinctively we know it and walk like blind animals into a darker age than history has ever known”
What struck me about it was not just how true this statement was and is, but how vastly more true it is now — especially considering it was written decades before the digital age.
“it is perfectly possible, even normal, to live a life of contradictions”. (1)
It is near impossible to live a life without contradiction.
This seems to be the theme in the writings of the truly enlightened - the acceptance of paradox... Constantly balancing opposites without succumbing to nihilism.
If nature wasn't harsh, we wouldn't have wanted to distance ourselves from it. Thus creating soft morons that don't know where their food comes from, crippled by convenience and so easily manipulated.
Yes...Factual. As a lifetime Farmer/Rancher living according to Nature; know your words to be totally 'On-Target'. Though working a career as well as on the land was difficult...
IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE THOUGH NATURE IS HARSH AT TIMES.
The Holy Bible defines cities as evil places as they are the impetus for the distancing and resulting ignorance, stupidity and laziness you illude to and didn't state as directly as I.
Thank you Paul, this is an inspiring essay. 'To live a life despite it all, to find a way beyond the wall of fear, beauty's always here sometimes unseen, between the black and white the light between. Mother Nature shows us how to live and move within the Now. In diverse ways we play our part , enrounded in that boundless heart of Love'
Wasn't familiar with Read. His words you cite resonate strongly now.
However, I bet many a Social Justice Warrior would read your piece on Read and find a kindred spirit, and then get back to "fighting the good fight" for the Globalists and the 4IR. People don't know who the enemy is, we have the false consciousnesses manufactured by ideology, mass propaganda, social engineering and psychological warfare...
Well, no, he doesn't fit at all into the Pfizer Left mindset. If he was alive today, he would ostracised by woke pseudo-anarchists. Criticising industrialism? Reactionary! Publishing Carl Jung? Crypto-fascist! I helped organise an event about Read at a UK anarchist venue a few years back and the discussion was destroyed by persistent complaints that he was "privileged" - although from a working class background he evidently came across as too "white", male and intelligent to be acceptable to certain persons. And then there is the fact that he accepted a knighthood for services to literature in 1953. This defiant embrace of the need for a life of contradictions didn't go down at all well with fellow anarchists - either at the time or subsequently.
The "Pfizer Left", that's a good term! I wonder if a lot of this posturing comes out of identity politics with its disdain for free speech. It's not about the content of what you say but rather "who" you are. (Pure tribalism.) Genuine support for free speech is really only meaningful in supporting the speech of those voices YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR!. That's where real politics is, respectful disagreement and vigorous debate, not censorship. Because of the mass betrayal of core civil liberties (like free speech) by the "radical left", self-identified socialists and anarchists, I no longer identify with them. Now, I am just someone who thinks for myself - about everything!
He Definitely embraced contradiction by accepting a knighthood. Is it true or plausible that some of these writers sold out to the powers at the time, and instead became advisors? As much as everyone turns to Orwell's work a a warning to the world, I find that, especially in 1984, the failing of Winston Smith's humanity under duress has created a world of nihilists.
Not all people fail under threat or torture.
1984, like brave new world etc are to me playbooks, not warnings.
I understand why Read accepted the knighthood, given his lifelong attraction to the idea of being a medieval knight and also the historical context of a post-WW2 Britain in which fascism had (apparently!) been defeated and a better, fairer, society initiated. Maybe he also simply found it rather amusing to be an anarchist and a "Sir". Re Orwell, you're right that Winston Smith's submission - rather than defiant martyrdom - is a weakness in 1984. It's not the ending most of us would have chosen! Did it reflect some kind of intellectual surrender by Orwell himself - an idea contradicted by the content of the novel - or simply the fact that he didn't have long to live and knew as much, deep down? Having read their wider output, I think that both he and Huxley were genuinely warning us of what was to come. Their works helped delay that totalitarianism by several decades, in my view.
A curtain level of dissent has not only been accepted by the powers that have been, but I believe it has been a requirement, a relief valve for the questioning person, to allow hope ( but not too much).
To allow dissent in order to find any actual threats to their agenda.
Yes, Orwell wasn't very positive. I became an alcoholic for 30 years after reading 1984.
I gave up a year ago when I realised that this crazy time we are living in is the first time, possibly ever, that people will ever see almost full transparency of the power train, and have the choice to be at least mentally free.
I was struck by this quote: "“It is as simple as that: we have lost touch with things, lost the physical experience that comes from a direct contact with the organic processes of nature… We know it – instinctively we know it and walk like blind animals into a darker age than history has ever known”
What struck me about it was not just how true this statement was and is, but how vastly more true it is now — especially considering it was written decades before the digital age.
“it is perfectly possible, even normal, to live a life of contradictions”. (1)
It is near impossible to live a life without contradiction.
This seems to be the theme in the writings of the truly enlightened - the acceptance of paradox... Constantly balancing opposites without succumbing to nihilism.
Must be as you claim since not accepting the paradox
is to endure internal conflict forging
depression and anxiety towards early death.
One must wonder when reading an essay as this,
"Exactly what, in nature, is an early death?"
One must also encounter the truth of life on Earth...
Sometimes, the natural world can be a true, evil bitch.
If nature wasn't harsh, we wouldn't have wanted to distance ourselves from it. Thus creating soft morons that don't know where their food comes from, crippled by convenience and so easily manipulated.
Yes...Factual. As a lifetime Farmer/Rancher living according to Nature; know your words to be totally 'On-Target'. Though working a career as well as on the land was difficult...
IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE THOUGH NATURE IS HARSH AT TIMES.
The Holy Bible defines cities as evil places as they are the impetus for the distancing and resulting ignorance, stupidity and laziness you illude to and didn't state as directly as I.
Thank you Paul, this is an inspiring essay. 'To live a life despite it all, to find a way beyond the wall of fear, beauty's always here sometimes unseen, between the black and white the light between. Mother Nature shows us how to live and move within the Now. In diverse ways we play our part , enrounded in that boundless heart of Love'
Thank you Paul.!
Wasn't familiar with Read. His words you cite resonate strongly now.
However, I bet many a Social Justice Warrior would read your piece on Read and find a kindred spirit, and then get back to "fighting the good fight" for the Globalists and the 4IR. People don't know who the enemy is, we have the false consciousnesses manufactured by ideology, mass propaganda, social engineering and psychological warfare...
Well, no, he doesn't fit at all into the Pfizer Left mindset. If he was alive today, he would ostracised by woke pseudo-anarchists. Criticising industrialism? Reactionary! Publishing Carl Jung? Crypto-fascist! I helped organise an event about Read at a UK anarchist venue a few years back and the discussion was destroyed by persistent complaints that he was "privileged" - although from a working class background he evidently came across as too "white", male and intelligent to be acceptable to certain persons. And then there is the fact that he accepted a knighthood for services to literature in 1953. This defiant embrace of the need for a life of contradictions didn't go down at all well with fellow anarchists - either at the time or subsequently.
The "Pfizer Left", that's a good term! I wonder if a lot of this posturing comes out of identity politics with its disdain for free speech. It's not about the content of what you say but rather "who" you are. (Pure tribalism.) Genuine support for free speech is really only meaningful in supporting the speech of those voices YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR!. That's where real politics is, respectful disagreement and vigorous debate, not censorship. Because of the mass betrayal of core civil liberties (like free speech) by the "radical left", self-identified socialists and anarchists, I no longer identify with them. Now, I am just someone who thinks for myself - about everything!
He Definitely embraced contradiction by accepting a knighthood. Is it true or plausible that some of these writers sold out to the powers at the time, and instead became advisors? As much as everyone turns to Orwell's work a a warning to the world, I find that, especially in 1984, the failing of Winston Smith's humanity under duress has created a world of nihilists.
Not all people fail under threat or torture.
1984, like brave new world etc are to me playbooks, not warnings.
I understand why Read accepted the knighthood, given his lifelong attraction to the idea of being a medieval knight and also the historical context of a post-WW2 Britain in which fascism had (apparently!) been defeated and a better, fairer, society initiated. Maybe he also simply found it rather amusing to be an anarchist and a "Sir". Re Orwell, you're right that Winston Smith's submission - rather than defiant martyrdom - is a weakness in 1984. It's not the ending most of us would have chosen! Did it reflect some kind of intellectual surrender by Orwell himself - an idea contradicted by the content of the novel - or simply the fact that he didn't have long to live and knew as much, deep down? Having read their wider output, I think that both he and Huxley were genuinely warning us of what was to come. Their works helped delay that totalitarianism by several decades, in my view.
A curtain level of dissent has not only been accepted by the powers that have been, but I believe it has been a requirement, a relief valve for the questioning person, to allow hope ( but not too much).
To allow dissent in order to find any actual threats to their agenda.
Yes, Orwell wasn't very positive. I became an alcoholic for 30 years after reading 1984.
I gave up a year ago when I realised that this crazy time we are living in is the first time, possibly ever, that people will ever see almost full transparency of the power train, and have the choice to be at least mentally free.